returning to full fitness

Amprodude

At the moment i have lost all my fitness. I was involved in a car accident a few weeks ago and with the injuries i sustained i wont be able to train for a good while. For me this is a nightmare. Basically i used to train 5-6 times a week across a range of different disciplines and it was a huge part of my life. It kept me happy and healthy and it helped me to stop the depression that i used to suffer from time to time.. At the moment im delighted to be alive but wondering with all the medication i have to take for pain, it will take me along time to get back to where i was again before accident and when i do get an opportunity to go training. I have put on a bit of weight since accident (4-5kg) and understandably enough i dont look as sharp or better than i did before accident. My diet is also a mess at the month and im eating foods I shouldnt be eating. The accident has made me lose my discipline. It depresses me to hear my friends going to gym in the evenings and im not able to go or do what i enjoy as well.

Anyone been through this before and if so how does one deal with it and get back to where i was before.


Thanks for advice.

Chickenl

Hi amprodude,
I'm a longtime lurker on boards (mostly running) but your message struck a chord.
Firstly, I'm glad you're okay. I've been there, i had a bad smash a couple of years ago, and I know how shocking the whole experience is. It certainly shook me and made me feel really vulnerable and to be honest, that still comes and goes in waves. There were other psychological aspects for me, including flashbacks and brief panicky symptoms when in the car. Practical people around me didn't allow me avoid, though, and I was able to carry on. Anxiety doesn't cause the big problems really; avoidance does so try to be a no-nonsense friend to yourself and get back into a car fairly soon.
I primarily had a back injury, no broken bones, and this was limiting. I could only comfortably lie down. My instinct was to just lie down and stay home and take painkillers, but this didn't really help. In the end I stopped waiting to become pain free, got back to work after a few weeks, have to say it was absolutely exhausting, and for the first few months, maybe more i would have to take a nap when I got home, was not fit to do anything after work during the week.
I got to that level-managing, living with variable amount of pain-and kind of plateaued. Not brilliant but managing.
I looked into various options in terms of medical interventions etc, not wanting to do anything invasive etc, decided that 'I'd prefer to manage with this' than risk anything else. Someone a lot smarter than me bullied me into going for physiotherapy and this changed everything for me. It helped with the pain, gave me a sense that I was helping myself, doing the exercises etc, and it ended up being a bit of a gateway to exercise generally. I became a slowish runner, learned to swim etc.
Physically I'm not perfect, I have a baseline of pain pretty much daily. Worse some times, but you just go a bit easy on yourself. I always know I can improve it with my physio exercises, or a hot water bottle or whatever.
I don't like driving, but I drive every day and it's manageable.
I hope the point coming across in this is that, yes, what happened is rotten, and unfair and i don't know the nature of your injuries, but I absolutely believe that you can get back to doing what you did before, in small steps. Look at what helps and look at what doesn't help. Go easy on yourself but, when you're able, try to extend what you do, plateau, and then go further when you can.
There may be an element of 'living with your pain', rather than endlessly and unsatisfactorily seeking to be painfree, but this is choosing all of the rest of your life over concentrating on the pain.
Take good care,
Cl